Stuart Harrison - Lost Summer

He drove the last few miles at a sedate pace and when he arrived in Castleton it was almost dark. As he crossed the bridge over the river he glanced across the water meadow to the dark line of trees that hid Johnson’s sawmill, if it was still there. Further on the main street narrowed as he passed the newsagent that was once owned by Angela’s father. The shop looked the same but the name above the door was no longer Curtis. He emerged into the partly cobbled square and turned through the gates of the New Inn, which was a pub and hotel and hadn’t been new since 1745 when the coach house had burned down and a new one had been built. The barns at the rear had been converted into extra rooms, four on ground level, four above, with steps leading up the outside and a walkway past the doors.

He hadn’t booked, but the tourist season had ended and there was no problem getting a room. He chose a new one in the conversion, and as he signed the register the young woman who checked him in asked if he would like to have dinner in the restaurant across the hall, which when he looked was empty. The hum of voices emanated from the bar, however, along with the smell of roast beef and gravy.

‘I’ll get something at the bar,’ he said. She smiled and asked how long he would be staying. ‘I’m not sure. Say a week.’

On the way past the bar he heard a woman laugh and when he looked inside and saw her standing among a group with her back to him his heart skipped a beat. For an instant time confused him and he thought at first it was Louise. She was slim with long blonde hair that shone in the light, but then he remembered where he was and it was no longer Louise he thought of but the person she had reminded him of the first time he’d seen her. He stood transfixed but then the woman in the bar turned and she wasn’t Angela after all.

He went to his room and sat down on the bed. His heart was still beating too fast and he experienced an odd sense of revelation. All these years he had harboured a memory of her, but it was like something covert and hidden. Only now did he begin to sense the force of everything he had kept shut inside himself all that time.

He went to bed early and woke at six-thirty as it was beginning to get light. The hotel was quiet other than the first sounds of stirring from behind the kitchen doors when he looked in the restaurant. He decided to go for a walk before breakfast, partly from curiosity and partly to loosen up his leg, which had stiffened overnight. The town was deserted, the sky purple, beginning to turn blue as the sun crept up over the hills. When he reached the river he followed the public footpath across the meadow and as he approached the trees on the far side he detected the familiar, tangy scent of cut pine and sawdust. As he drew nearer he could see that the sawmill was still there. He paused, flooded with memories of riding his bike this way in the holidays before catching the bus into Carlisle and his job at the Courier. Other memories crowded and jostled in his mind and when he turned and walked back the way he’d come crows flapped from the trees and mocked him.

At the hotel he ate breakfast alone in the restaurant, though next to him a table covered with the litter of empty cups and egg-smeared plates was testament to the fact that others had also been up early. Afterwards he drove along the valley towards Brampton and took the main road to Carlisle where he followed the signs to the new hospital. Inside he followed directions to the pathology department and asked to speak to Dr Keller.

‘My name’s Turner,’ he told the receptionist. ‘I have an appointment.’

Dr Keller, when she arrived, didn’t fit the mental picture Adam had already formed of her based on their brief phone conversation when he’d called from London. He was expecting somebody older than the woman in her mid-thirties who approached him. Her smile was friendly as she offered her hand.

‘I’m afraid I can’t spare you more than half an hour,’ she said, speaking with a soft Scottish accent as she led the way along a narrow corridor.

Her office was large and untidy. Files in brown folders that hadn’t made it to the filing cabinets were stacked on every available surface. She made space for him on a chair beneath a framed certificate from Edinburgh University on the wall.

‘On the phone you mentioned a road accident.’ She sat behind her desk and opened files she had already retrieved. ‘Three young men. Pierce, Frost and Davies?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you’re a journalist?’

‘I’m a freelance writer. I specialize in investigative features.’

‘I see. Well, I’ve checked with the police and there’s no investigation pending. The coroner’s verdict was accidental death, but I take it you’re aware of that.’

‘Yes.’

Dr Keller laced her fingers together on her desk. ‘So, how can I help?’

‘When we spoke you said autopsies were performed on all three victims. Did you examine the bodies yourself?’

‘Actually, yes.’

‘Can you tell me if you found anything unusual at all? Anything to indicate this could have been something other than an accident.’

She furrowed her brow. ‘I’m afraid I don’t follow you.’

He explained briefly that Helen Pierce maintained that her brother, who was supposedly the driver of the car, not only didn’t know how to drive, but didn’t drink either. ‘I understand the autopsy results showed that his blood alcohol level was several times above the legal limit.’

She listened without comment, and then began to scan the contents of the files in front of her. ‘That’s correct.’ As she leafed through the pages she laid out some photographs on the desk. They were black and white prints, each of the naked body of a young male, Ben Pierce among them. He lay face up on the autopsy slab, the channels designed to carry away body fluids clearly visible.

‘Judging from the contents of his stomach and by measuring the rate of alcohol absorption in his blood and brain I’d say this young man had consumed the equivalent of a large glass, or about a quarter of a bottle of spirits prior to the accident.’

‘Enough to make him drunk?’

‘People react differently when they drink, but I’d say so, yes. In his case the reaction might well have been worse.’

‘Oh? Why is that?’

‘He also had traces of a drug called Lamictal in his blood. Do you know what that is?’

‘The medication he took to control his epilepsy?’

‘That’s right.’

‘His sister claims that he didn’t drink much because of his medication. Apparently more than a beer made him sick.’

Dr Keller met his eye and though she didn’t look entirely unsympathetic she shrugged slightly. ‘That’s quite possible. The side-effects people experience from drugs like Lamictal can vary, but certainly for some mixing it with alcohol could make them quite ill. However, there is no doubt that this young man had been drinking.’

‘There’s no chance of some kind of error I suppose? Perhaps his results were mixed up with somebody else’s.’

She shook her head, and smiled a little wryly. ‘I’ll disregard the implied slur on my professional conduct, Mr Turner. There is absolutely no chance of a mistake having occurred.’

‘No offence intended, Doctor.’

‘Then none is taken.’

Somehow it was this one thing, this anomaly that Helen Pierce had been so adamant about that had struck Adam most of all. If she was wrong about that, then perhaps she was wrong about everything else too. Maybe she simply hadn’t known her brother as well as she thought.

‘You said that this young man’s sister claims that he couldn’t drive,’ Dr Keller said.

‘He never learned because of his epilepsy. Apparently their parents were killed in a car accident. By a drunk driver.’